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Beautiful Triplets

Featured on March 8, 2010

The galaxies NGC 3628 (top), M66 (lower left), and M65 (lower right) form the Leo Triplet. Gravitational encounters with the other two galaxies have "pumped up" NGC 3628, triggering the birth of millions of new stars and pulling out a tail of stars that stretches across a quarter-million light-years. NGC 3628 is a spiral galaxy, like our own Milky Way, and is seen here edge-on. [REU program/NOAO/AURA/NSF]